SC Will Hear Ahmed Patel’s Plea Seeking Direction to Gujarat HC to Dismiss Petition Challenging His Election to RS

The Supreme Court of India will hear on July 9 senior Congress Leader from Gujarat Ahmed Patel’s petition seeking directive to the State High Court asking it to desist from proceeding with a plea challenging his election to the Rajya Sabha .SC Bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI)  Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said the court will hear Patel’s plea seeking to dismiss the petition filed against him at the Gujarat High Court next Monday.

Patel was elected to the Rajya Sabha last year after defeating  BJP nominee Balwantsinh Rajput. He had resigned from the Congress to join the BJP. Ahmad Patel  was declared elected  after the Election Commission of India  cancelled the votes cast in favour of Congress MLAs Bhola Bhai Gohil and Raghav Bhai Patel. This had brought down the requirement for an outright victory for a candidate to 44 from 45. After Patel was declared elected, Rajput filed a petition in the high court challenging the Election Commission’s decision to invalidate votes of the two rebel MLAs. Had these votes been counted, he would have defeated Patel, Rajput said. In the petition filed in the HC, Rajput also alleged that Patel had ferried Congress party’ s  MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru before the elections  amounting to bribing the voters. They were kept confined, entertained and flown back to Gujarat shortly before polling for the RS poll, he said.

Patel had challenged Rajput’s plea and sought its dismissal at the “threshold level” for not serving respondents an attested copy of the petition as required under the law.

The high court, however, rejected his plea and said the petitioner had substantially complied with the provisions of law and the defects could be easily cured. Patel has approached the apex court against the Gujarat High Court’s order saying that Rajput’s petition is “devoid of merits” and fails to show any “cause of action”.